Keep your store’s look fresh with the use of lighting, dramatic colors and frequent updates to draw customers in. Consider the atmosphere you want to create and use these tips to achieve impactful results:

Use lighting effectively – Utilize lighting to support the ambiance you are creating for your space just as the retailer below has using an ornate chandelier for an upscale feel. While track and recessed lighting is effective, consider also using some creative lighting like chandeliers and lamps. Also, experiment with various levels of light from bright to dim and see how it changes the feel of your store.

Use dramatic colors for eye-catching appeal – Both photos in this post are great examples of how to use dramatic colors to create an unforgettable impression on customers and passers-by. Colors can evoke emotions so choose colors that will emote the feeling of your store. Choose contrasting colors for the greatest impact.

Keep things fresh – Frequent updates to your displays, design and windows will keep your space interesting and fresh. Consider changing your color and lighting scheme with each season or in preparation for major shopping seasons such as the holidays. Customers take notice to displays that are regularly changing.

Recently a friend told me about a vintage fashion website called Mod Cloth that has built its business around letting its customers decide on the items it will carry. Website founders call it “a fashion business in a democratic style.” How American! With its “Be the Buyer” program, you can scroll through and vote on fashions to “Pick It” or “Skip It.” And based on the members’ votes, the company decides to carry an item or not.

This idea could translate very well to just about any retailer rather easily. For example, say that you visit an annual trade show each year to pick products for the next year. While at the show you could snap some pictures of products you’re considering carrying, upload them to your Facebook page, create a simple poll (or just request comments) and ask your fans what products they would prefer seeing in your store. It’s a great way to engage your fans and followers and make sure you’re selling the products your customers want to buy.

Of course you could also get as fancy as Mod Cloth has and add polling, reviewing and commenting features to your website.

Just recently Twitter launched its new “Follow Me” button. Similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, it can appear on your website and/or blog and with one click (and without leaving your site) visitors can follow you on Twitter.

Apparently these buttons are worth a try. A recent poll by Mirna Bard for SmartBrief on Social Media reported that almost 40 percent of respondents believe they have seen an increase in traffic to their website or blog thanks to including a social media plug-in such as the Facebook “Like” button. According to Facebook, whose “Like” button has been around for awhile, brands using the “Like” button have also seen an increase in revenue thanks to the plug-in.

If you've not already included these plug-ins on your website, now’s a great time to get on board. You can read more about the “Follow Me” button and get detailed instructions on how to install it on your site at Twitter’s Help Center website

When visiting the local Dunkin Donuts, my husband noticed that they have installed a free ATM machine. We thought what a great idea for retailers and/or merchants associations!

As we all have experienced, most ATMs charge $2 or $3 per transaction, so imagine how much foot traffic you could attract with a free ATM. Although I don’t have any hard data, I imagine most of the patrons that use the ATM end up buying something while in the store.

This week Google launched its new mobile wallet and daily deals strategy, Google Wallet, in New York and San Francisco. The application allows users to buy daily deals online from the deal network and store them in their Google Wallet. When they visit the retailer to redeem the deal, the “coupon” is in their “wallet” on their Android phone and the deal is applied to their purchase using Google’s single tap technology and a contactless PIN pad.

Google cites the fact that 80 percent of commerce is local as the reason for making the investment in their Groupon-killer app. Interestingly, Google will not be charging transaction fees to retailers for accepting the Google Wallet payments. They say they will instead be making money on the deals network.

What can you do? As a retailer, you already know that you want to be able to accept payments in as many ways as possible so that you never have to turn away a customer. Here are some first steps:

Get a contactless PIN pad
As mobile commerce continues to grow, you can begin to get ready for contactless payments, meaning payments where customers run their credit card or mobile phone across a contactless PIN pad. Contact your payment processor for more information. (According to the Google Wallet website you can get a free contactless PIN pad from First Data, Google’s payment processing partner.)

Learn more
You can learn more about the Google Wallet app by visiting the special website they have created for merchants. Also, you can search your ZIP code on the website to view fellow merchants that are already able to accept Google Wallet payments.

Sign up for updates
On the Google Wallet website, sign up to receive updates so that you’re among the first to know when Google’s deals network and other features are available in your area.

Having an effective visual design to your store will ideally stop passers-by in their tracks and draw them in, it will provide the impression and the emotional feel you want to put forth and it will keep the cash register ringing. Is it perhaps time to kick up your visual display?

Here are a few points of inspiration for you:

1. Does everything work together? Make sure all aspects of your visual display work together to create the atmosphere you desire for your space. Make sure the lighting, colors, textures, and furniture work together and are consistent with the visual appeal you want to create.

2. Window displays – The old business maxim says “you only get once chance to make a great first impression.” As a retailer, you already know that you have just a few seconds to attract the attention of passers-by, thus your window displays must be entertaining and attractive. Change your windows regularly and keep them edgy, as this retailer has by creating its own portrayal of Angels and Demons.

3. Create a winning entrance – Create a welcoming, open entrance that avoids overwhelming customers, but invites them to investigate further, like the retailer in this photo has effectively done. Your entry display can include one featured product or a display that draws an appealing variety of products used together.

Tune in for my next post on visual merchandising which will address using colors, lighting and keeping your look fresh.

A colleague of mine told me about a great seasonal promotion event that I thought would be great to share with you as inspiration for one of your upcoming events. A small, locally owned garden center in Minturn, CO (Johnie’s Garden Center), celebrates its opening day for the growing season each year with a special Lady Bug Release Party. It's a family-friendly event with crafts for the kids, a free cookout lunch with hamburgers and hotdogs and plenty of free gardening advice. The highlight of the event is when each child in attendance is given a packet of over 300 lady bugs to release on the grounds of the garden center. The retailer promoted the event on its Facebook page with regular posts about the benefits of having lady bugs in your garden, as well as with commercials on radio and in print.

What I love about this event is that it has almost nothing to do with selling trees, plants and shrubs, but it attracts hundreds of customers to its location, many of whom had likely never been there before and likely did not plan to go the local garden center that day. The event also provided fodder for numerous social media posts, interaction and community building. And I imagine it attracted more sales that early-season day than at any of the other garden centers in the surrounding area.

What equally creative and effective seasonal events can you come up with for your store?

Hopefully you are now collecting customer reviews and using them on your website and in all of your marketing efforts. Having customer reviews readily available can improve your credibility and increase sales by as much as 12 percent or more. However, I recently read about a research study that says that well-written reviews — cogent and free of major grammatical and spelling errors, whether positive or negative — increase sales more than those that are not well-written, even if positive. According to the research, conducted by Panos Ipeirotis of NYU’s Stern School of Business, well-written reviews inspire confidence in the reviewer and in the company and product, even if the review is negative.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, Ipeirotis goes on to give an example of an online retailer, Zappos, which also recognized that well-written reviews increase sales. He says that Zappos corrects the grammatical errors — not the content — in consumer reviews to create higher-quality reviews and thus increased sales. I think this is a brilliant observation and great idea and would recommend that you too, when possible, edit customer reviews for grammar and spelling and see if it helps increase sales for your business.

Read more about Panos Ipeirotis’s research.

Recently I read a study which reported that 35 percent of customers who have opted-in to receive text-based promotional messages from retailers subsequently visit that store’s ecommerce website or physical location. That’s a pretty impressive response rate! In addition, the report says 34 percent of those folks end up redeeming the offer or coupon included in the promotional message. Although redemption rates can vary quite a bit from 11 to 65 percent, it is still higher than other forms of direct marketing, like direct mail.

So what’s this mean for you? It means that perhaps some text-based marketing, which is often paired with location-based marketing like Foursquare and Facebook Places, may be a marketing tactic for you to experiment with.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Claim your place on Facebook Places and Foursquare. There’s no cost to claim your location and when shoppers are in the vicinity of your business and looking for a shop like yours using their smartphone, they can receive messages and offers from you.

Look into engaging mobile marketing providers such as Placecast. The North Face uses Placecast to send text alerts to customers that have opted-in to receive such messages. North Face has perimeters set around its stores and local outdoor recreation areas. When customers enter those areas they will receive tips on hiking or biking trails in the area, as well as notifications about special offers at their local North Face store.

Talk to your customers. Begin with an informal survey of your customers asking them if they would like to receive special offers from you via text message and whether they even use text messaging. If the majority of folks you speak to seem interested, perhaps it’s something to add to your marketing mix and with the high response rates reported in the survey I mentioned earlier, it could be well worth the investment.

Having a super-targeted list of customers and prospects to market to is worth its weight in gold, as it’s the key to driving more sales and profits for your store. Therefore it’s essential that you take the time to build and maintain your list. Keep in mind that the best, most profitable lists are those that are built one person at a time with your customers and prospective customers agreeing to be a part of it.

So, how do you create such a list? Here are a few ideas:

It’s all in how you ask
Simply asking “may I have your name and address for our list” will almost always result in a "no." However, if you pose the question by also stating the benefit, you will likely have most agree to give you their contact information. For example, you could say “would you like me to let you know when more styles or colors of this item come in?” or “we’d love to send you a gift on your birthday, what’s the date and your email address?”

Ask everywhere
Recruit new subscribers to your list in every form of communication that you produce, such as press releases, print advertisements and radio spots. Make sure to mention the main benefits of subscribing like a special discount, monthly drawings, a newsletter loaded with valuable ideas or exclusive invitations to special events. Ask for new subscribers on the homepage of your website and at the check out of your ecommerce site with a link to your sign-up page. Provide a link to your sign-up page in your email marketing, write posts on your social media pages and even include a link in your personal email signature line. Little by little you will see your list increase in size.

Start a frequent buyer program
Create a program that is heavy on benefits that are easily redeemable and your customers will be much more willing to offer their contact information. Benefits could include a free monthly newsletter chock full of great ideas, a first look at new popular products, special member’s-only events and a monthly contest where the winner gets a gift card or free gift. Promote your rewards program in your store as well as on your website where you can include a sign-up page. Include links in your email marketing as well as on your Facebook Page. Encourage customers to forward sign-up information to friends. Have a regular “Invite-a-Friend” promotion and for customers that get a friend to sign up, either in-store or online, both will get a free gift or be entered into a frequent drawing.

Have regular contests and/or giveaways
Having a regular contest or random drawing can be a great way to catapult the size of your list. Get creative and have fun with it, such as asking entrants to describe an experience with one of your products or your store. La-Z-Boy is a great example. The furniture retailer grew the size of its list by 13,000 new prospects with a creative contest called “Comfort Stories,” which asked entrants to submit a story about how La-Z-Boy furniture brought comfort to their lives. The retailer promoted the contest on its website and launched three email marketing campaigns. The winners were awarded highly desirable prizes such as a room makeover, recliners, a Nintendo Wii game console and Amazon gift cards. Promote your contest in your store as well as on your website and social media pages.